


Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

by agent_florida



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-13
Updated: 2010-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-23 17:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_florida/pseuds/agent_florida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grif comes up with what might possibly be the nerdiest Valentine’s day gift ever for Simmons – which, of course, makes it perfect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

“Grif, what are you doing?”  
  
Simmons had set down his tray on the lunchroom table to see his boyfriend looking at his hands in his lap, his fingers twitching. “Nothing,” the other boy said, still concentrating on his hands as Simmons took a seat.  
  
“If you wrote the answers to the calc test on your hand again…” Simmons left the other half of his threat unsaid.  
  
“You wouldn’t do anything,” Grif said, his smile infectious. It was true – if Simmons threatened to snitch on him, all it would earn him would be a week without those truly amazing Hawaiian kisses.  
  
“I just wish you wouldn’t cheat on the tests,” Simmons sighed as he mashed his food around on his tray. Disgusting school lunches – he’d have to remember to pack his tomorrow.  
  
“It’s not my fault I can’t concentrate,” Grif pointed out.  
  
“Stop waggling your eyebrows like that – it looks like you’re having a seizure.”  
  
“You are so oblivious.” Then the focus in his eyes changed, and Simmons turned around to see what Grif was seeing: across the cafeteria, Kai was practically falling into Tucker’s lap as their friend got a good look at her cleavage. “Can you watch my tray for a minute?” Grif asked his boyfriend, his voice tight. “I have to go kill my sister.”  
  
\---  
  
They had only been going out for about a week (had it really been a week since the winter formal?), and it made Simmons a little uncomfortable. Not because he didn’t like Grif, or because he was afraid of being outed at school. No, it was that Valentine’s Day was coming up that weekend, and he didn’t have anything for his new boyfriend. He didn’t know what kinds of things Grif would have liked to get, except maybe for himself with a gigantic bow on his forehead, so when they were in chemistry together, he passed him a note while the teacher was writing some horrendously long formula on the board.  _What do you want for V-day?_  
  
Thirty seconds later, the note was surreptitiously back on his desk.  _You._  So predictable.  
  
 _Besides me._  In passing the note to Grif, their fingers touched for the briefest second, and Simmons felt his face heat up from just the brief contact.  
  
Simmons was expecting the note back almost immediately, but Grif waited a full seven minutes and thirteen seconds to pass it back, seven minutes and thirteen seconds that consisted in Simmons being called on every time to answer the teacher’s questions about covalent bonds. With every correct answer, he could hear Grif grumble “kissass” from in front of him, but he was getting used to the nickname; in fact, it was almost sweet to hear that from him now.  
  
When he finally got the note back from Grif, he had written  _I think it’s too early to do gifts._  
  
Simmons sighed in relief – just one more thing he didn’t have to worry about. But what if Grif wanted to do something special?  _What do you want to do this weekend?_  
  
This time, the note almost got swiped by the girl sitting next to Grif before Simmons could pass it along. He watched Grif stare at it for a few moments, tried to see the cogs going in his head, hoped he wouldn’t write anything too inappropriate in case the note got confiscated. Finally, the scrap of paper was back on his desk.  _Movies at your place? You said you had the director’s cut of Bladerunner._  Wow, Grif had remembered that it was his favorite movie? And was letting himself be degraded to the level of ‘nerd’ just to make him happy and watch it with him?  
  
He could swear his grin was hurting his face, but he didn’t really care. Just looking at Grif’s scrawl on the paper between his own neat letters was enough to make his heart beat a little faster in the how-did-I-ever-deserve-you way. Apparently, he was so distracted by the note that he missed the bell ringing for the end of class, and Donut had to wave his hand in front of his face to get him to come back down to Earth and pay attention. “Anybody in there? We have to get to gym, else Flowers is going to mark us as tardy again.”  
  
The last thing Simmons wanted to do was help Donut stretch his hammies for one more day, but he still felt buoyed up by happiness as he slipped Grif’s note into his back pocket. Maybe this wouldn’t be such an awkward weekend after all.  
  
\---  
  
The rest of the school day passed without too much of a fuss, and then as the last bell rang, it was finally Valentine’s Day weekend. The hallways were mostly filled with grumbling, the loudest of it coming from that angsty emo kid who was always hanging around Tucker, but Simmons was able to ignore most of it as he popped the lock on his locker.  
  
“What time should I be at your house on Sunday?”  
  
“Gah!” Typical Grif, popping up behind him unexpectedly and scaring him into dropping his books. “Don’t do that!”  
  
“What? I like watching you blush.” He leaned his chin on Simmons’ shoulder, their cheeks rubbing together briefly, and Simmons felt his face obediently flush for Grif’s enjoyment. “So, what time?”  
  
“I don’t know. I have Mass in the morning and that stupid comp-sci project to work on, and I’d also have to make sure that we’d have somewhere to watch the movie, and I don’t think you could stay for dinner...”  
  
Grif cut him off. “I’ll be there at two-thirty.” And for a brief moment, he hugged Simmons around the waist and rested his forehead against his neck, a tender embrace that left Simmons in awe of just how lucky he was to have Grif as a boyfriend.  
  
\---  
  
As of two forty-five on Sunday afternoon, Simmons was a fidgety mess.  
  
He hadn’t appreciated being told this morning that he was going to Hell for everything he was. He had appreciated his computer eating the four hours of progress on his project even less. His sisters were even refusing to give up possession of the big-screen TV in the basement. What really put the icing on the cake, though, was that Grif was late.  
  
Finally, though, he heard a car in the driveway, and sure enough it was Grif’s old station wagon, the only one in the school parking lot with wooden sides and a surfboard lashed to the roof. He snuck out to the porch to make sure the inevitable greeting hug happened out of view of his family, and predictably it even ended with a kiss. “You’re okay with kissing me in public now?” Grif asked as he pulled away.  
  
“I’d rather kiss you in front of my neighbors than in front of my family,” Simmons grumbled as he let both of them back inside. As he reached down for Grif’s hand, though, he realized that his fingers and palms were filthy. “Why are your hands so dirty?”  
  
“I, uh… it’s a secret.” They stole down to the basement, which was now thankfully free of giggling girls, and once they had rounded the corner from the stairs, Grif’s mouth was on his again, hands reaching up to hold his neck.  
  
Simmons pried them away, though; knowing Grif, he now had black marks all over his skin, a telltale sign that someone had been touching him. “Go wash them. Christ, that’s disgusting.”  
  
“It’s… it’s for your present,” Grif said in a small voice. And, wonder of wonders, Simmons could actually see a little color in his cheeks. Was he actually embarrassed about something for once?  
  
“I thought you said we weren’t doing gifts for Valentine’s Day,” Simmons said, crossing his arms. If Grif had bought him something, he was going to feel like a heel for not thinking to buy him anything in return.  
  
“Not buying things. It’s… I just wanted to show you something. I thought you’d appreciate it.” He reached into a pocket on his cargo pants, drawing out a very beat-up iPod and a small set of speakers.  
  
When the music started playing, Simmons recognized it almost immediately. “Grif, are you – are you  _voluntarily_  listening to Daft Punk?”  
  
“Yup.” He couldn’t hide his smug smirk. “You… you might want to get behind me, it’s going to be hard to see from that angle.”  
  
And then Simmons realized what his boyfriend was up to. He obediently got behind him, resting his chin on Grif’s shoulder and holding him around the waist as Grif’s fists balled, palm-up, in front of them both. Grif made his hands do a little shuffle, the quick, jerky movements making Simmons smile, before the words to the song started.  
  
And, just like that stupid viral video, Grif had written the words on his hands, making his fingers and palms spell out the words as they came up. Surprisingly, though, the words didn’t obscure how long his fingers were, or how flexible they could be. Simmons himself had tried to do this several times, but could never separate his fingers or get the dexterity he needed to be a super-nerd, and he was easily frustrated at trying to learn the complicated routine.  
  
Of course, the words were easy at first, and Grif got the entire first ‘verse’ correct, but Simmons was hoping that he would secretly screw up, and then Simmons could point to each finger, just touch him a little, make sure he was doing everything right… He found himself muttering the words along with the song, enjoying the little show that Grif was putting on for him.  
  
Then, inexplicably, the music sped up to twice its double speed. “Ha, and you thought  _that_  was hard,” Grif bragged as his hands effortlessly twitched and danced along to the music. Simmons was transfixed. Not only had Grif listened to Daft Punk for him, not only had he taken the time to learn the hand movements, but he had also had the dedication to do it better and faster than the original video.  
  
Once the show was over, Simmons let out a low whistle. “I can’t believe you actually did that for me.”  
  
“Ha, you think I did it just for you,” Grif said, reaching behind Simmons to slip one hand into the back pocket of his trousers.  
  
“Best gift ever,” Simmons admitted, holding Grif a little closer and kissing his exposed neck.  
  
“Mm, no,  _that_  was,” Grif said contentedly. “But I have a better idea.” He guided Simmons’ hand to another pocket of his cargo pants, where Simmons found a pack of Post-It notes with the words to the songs on them. “You feel like playing a little game?”  
  
Together, they stuck the Post-Its to Grif’s face, neck, and shirt, and Simmons forgot all about  _Bladerunner_  for almost two glorious hours as he tried to coordinate touching and kissing the Post-It notes to the lyrics of the song.


End file.
